


Comfort, Food

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Comfort Food, Eating, F/M, Food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5166455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had never cooked when they'd worked for the FBI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfort, Food

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: XF revival  
> A/N: for the XF Writing Challenge prompt "food".  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

They had never cooked when they'd worked for the FBI. There had been little point to filling their refrigerators: either the hours were long or they were out of town. Scully had had so many heads of lettuce go slimy in the crisper that she'd resorted to stocking her freezer with bags of frozen vegetables and boneless skinless chicken breasts, but they all got their shrouds of freezer burn, defrosting pale and flavorless after months nestled next to the ice cubes. Most of what she made went into the trash. She ate less and less, and cared less and less. At least bee pollen kept, and yogurt was simple.

They got takeout and ate, together or separately, on the phone or just thinking of each other, or they dined in cafes and diners and fast food places and seedy holes in the wall. On Sundays, if she was home, she went to her mother's and ate the familiar food of her childhood, casseroles and steamed vegetables, anything that could be prepared easily for five or six.

On the run, she longed for anything home-cooked. Mulder took them to Cracker Barrel, to Dixie Café, but she never found what she was craving.

In Virginia, she cooked. They cooked together. Sundays, she would prod Mulder into the kitchen to help her prep a week's worth of easy dinners and crockpot meals. She would leave them simmering when she left for the hospital, or she would text Mulder when she was on her way home: his skills were well up to the task of sautéing or baking. 

She got home later and later as her residency dragged on. She texted him to eat without her. For a while, he resisted, eating with her at eleven thirty, or getting up to make coffee for her at four, but the months went past and she dished her own portion out of the slow-cooker, or reheated it in the microwave, and ate alone at their table, lost in a world of symptoms and diagnoses, not even tasting what she ate.


End file.
